While it may seem that little has been shared about building the worship center for Christ South, I can assure you that much is happening behind the scenes moving the project forward.

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Our Design Team has been working with the architect to finalize the plans—and they are spectacular. If you will promise to come back to this blog, you can take a peek at the current design. See here.

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With these designs now in place, our contractor, Edifice, can give us a rough estimate of the price. While these will not be hard bids on the street, they are pretty good at narrowing the price tag. In anticipation of this estimate, we know that it will be higher than the $3 million that we voted on last year for several reasons:

• Construction costs are increasing rapidly
• Inflation has escalated the price of material
• We have increased the footprint by adding Sunday School space, a nursery, an upstairs loft, and a warming kitchen

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How much more? I can’t say right now, but we do know that it will continue to rise as we delay groundbreaking—which we must for the time being. Until the sting of Covid subsides and people return to worship, no one is ready to start building before we see a consistent worship attendance for Christ South of over 100 per Sunday.

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And that might take some time. Neither Christ Providence nor Christ Concord has reached pre-Covid attendance numbers. In fact, as I speak with colleagues across the country, most churches are seeing today between 50%-60% of their pre-Covid worship attendance. We are no exception.

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Here’s the plan. We will continue to work with the architect and builder. We will continue to choose interior materials, fixtures, appliances and finishings. At some point, with church council approval, we will bring the plans in for permitting (which will take several months). And once we obtain a permit, we sit on it. In fact, we can hold onto that permit for one year while we wait for giving and attendance to increase. So that when we are ready to have a congregational meeting to approve groundbreaking, we will be prepared to do so very quickly instead of having to wait six months for design, permitting, and interior selections.

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I wish I could be more exact on the price tag. I wish I could provide you with a groundbreaking date. I wish I could tell you that all the money is in hand. I can’t tell you any of that right now. But what I can tell you is that the design is beautiful, the vision is solid, the groundwork is being laid and the excitement is building.

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Soon and Very Soon,

Pastor Scott